Rebutia ID please?

[SimonT]

This plant I raised from seed many years ago, but I'm not sure of the ID?
The appearance changes quite a bit depending upon growth conditions

unknown

.

[ralphrmartin]

Perhaps A. pumila / vallegrandensis?

[SimonT]

Thanks for the name.
Looking at the descriptions online for this name it is a really good fit for the plant.
Weird it should be named "pumila" though- this is one of the largest plants I have!

[Tony R]

Weird it should be named "pumila" though- this is one of the largest plants I have!

pumila for the dwarf, short spines of this variant compared with close plants.

[SimonT]

OK thanks, I see where the name comes from.

The plant spines looked similar to albipilosa a few years ago and then I moved the plant, repotted it, and it dramatically changed appearance.

[ralphrmartin]

A.

albipilosa has much longer spines, as well as denser spination. The flower shape is different too. (Its now consider to be an Aylostera, not a Rebutia).

[edds]

That's a cracking plant Ralph. I've got some Aylostera albipilosa FR754 plants getting ready to flower that have nowhere near the Spination of yours (which is what I was hoping for!).

[ralphrmartin]

Mine came from Stuart, way back in 1997. He's been selling nice plants for a good few years!

[SimonT]

With regards to my comment about A. albipilosa, I was just pointing out that naming plants based upon spination is a bit ambiguous as spines are often different for the same plant under different growth conditions.

I like Ralph's picture too and I've also been growing albipilosa. When selecting seed I found that there is a bit of a naming controversy with albipilosa, not helped by there being a tendency to call many A. fiebrigii with white spines "albipilosa" although FR754 is the original albipilosa. So I've been growing FR754 and a number of other "albipilosa" plants with different field numbers. My plants are still mostly seedlings, but so far most look quite different to Ralph's plant too! Pictures online of FR754 look a lot like Ralph's plant though, so I hope spines will develop over time. Oddly, the most similar plant I have so far is called R. albolanata in ADBLPS- https://www.adblps-graines-cactus.com/g ... f-1340.jpg
This is listed elsewhere as a type of "albipilosa". One or two of my seedlings are forming buds now so I'm hoping for similar shaped reddy flowers as Ralph's plant!

[ralphrmartin]

There are certainly a lot of imposters about for albipilosa - unless you consider it to be extremely variable. While it's usually supposed to be an extreme form of A. fiebrigii, to me, this flower looks to have more in common with A. heliosa.